skein

November knitting and December goals

I did it!  I blogged for the whole of November!  I won't know what to do with myself now!  So, how did I do?

1) Blog every month for NaBloPoMo!  Yes! 

2) Lace sampler kal. November clue. I have a confession, this was released early, and I finished it last week!  Just need to blog about it. Done!

3) blog Mr C's birthday socks.Done!

4) Start Mr C's Christmas socks. Started! I'm on the leg of sock number two, I would have liked to have finished this in November, but there you go.

5) Finish off the textured shawl.  Done!  Needs blocking.

6) Participate in WoollyWormhead's hat kal, starting today. Done!  I've even finished it!

7) Knit some gloves. Not quite, but I've knitted some Chimera!

8) Knit some fingerless mitts   Done!  And they're double knitting!

9) Knit a cowl. Done!

10) Knit some mittens (I lost one last winter, fortunately at the end of the cold spell).

Fail!  But I'm not too bothered, as I've managed to knit a lacy baktus and the cuff of Eisblume gloves. 

Now for December!
I'm still very much into the small items knitting, but I need to complete 10 shawls and 12 garments!

1) Block the Textured Shawl and blog it. This is the ninth shawl for 10shawls2010.

2) Finish Mr C's Christmas socks. Now I've switched to Addis it should be quicker.

3) Start and finish some mittens. I wound the yarn up last night, ready to go!

4) Finish the last shawl for 10shawls2010.  I think that this will be the Lace Sampler knitalong I've been working on. I have December's clue to do, then the border. Lots of knitting and I suspect a lot of blocking!

5) Knit at least one Eisblume glove.  I finished the cuff last night, had a look at the pattern and the travelling cables go up the hand, so progress won't be as fast as I thought (though the finished design will look much nicer)

6) Start and finish the 12th garment for IntSweMoDo.  I bought some new yarn, as a treat, some Felted Tweed Aran.  I think it might be a Twist design..

7) Knit a Christmas cowl as a gift.

8) Knit a Christmas scarf as a gift (or socks)

9 & 10 ) Hmmm.  I have another two nice scarf patterns on my list, plus a few mitten patterns (well, three actually), and another two fingerless mitts patterns!  I shall try to see how much I can do, at least I may start a few more things!

 

Eisblume progress (sort of)

Brrr!  What am I doing knitting on fiddly beaded, cabled cuffs when I ought to be knitting mittens for our cold spell?

These are slow going.  It's a real pain knitting with 2mm needles, and trying to do travelling cables without a cable needle. I keep dropping the stitches, I  think it's because they're small and most of this travelling is done on every row. I don't seem to have any problems if there's been a break for a few rows!  The beads are also a bit small for the yarn, and I'm adding them with a crochet hook, so that is really slowing me up, especially when the wool won't go through the bead without splitting!  The pattern gives a very handy way of adding small beads using a needle,  which I've done, but I keep thinking it might be quicker with a hook. 

Poor quality taken-at-night-with-mobile!

Six rows to go and then it's the hand part, and, judging by the photo, that's plain knitting. 

In other knitting, the sock cuff hasn't been touched, so  no sock by the end of the month!  Though I have changed needles, from a knitpro 2.25mm circular to an addi 2.25mm circular and it'sm much easier to knit now. 

Textured shawl progress

The knitting is done!  It needs a good blocking though, not to open it out but to even out the shape a bit, it's all over the place.

This was  a bit of a chore to knit. I love the colour of the yarn (it's slightly darker and greyer than shown) but did not enjoy the knitting, the yarn was far too splitty for my liking.  I used three differenct needles, first addi lace (a joke!) then addi wood (great but I only had 60cm length) and finally a long addi.  My garter stitch is, frankly, as bad as my very first garter stitch square, knitted at school over 40 years ago!  I tried dropping stitches back to obvious splits, but  most was done in the evening, when the light wasn't so great, so a lot of mistakes weren't noticed until this morning. They're staying!

A close up of the pattern.

It's too late in the day to wash and block it - I use the bed, and this is alpaca silkl sportweight, might not be dry before bedtime!  It's so cold at the moment that the bedroom is just about warm.  I'm going to wait until the weatherr warms up - it's due to last a few weeks.  Mr C has been very brave and gone over to the boat today!  There's no Overground, so it's buses and waiting around, then a 20 minute walk at the other end.  And the boat will be COLD. The central heating may not work (frozen pipes!) and he'll have to warm it up with the electric heaters first. Brrr. Glad I am sitting indoors next to a radiator!

Chimera Mitts

Pattern: Chimera by Julia Meuller

Started: November 18th

Finsihed: November 26th

Yarn: Malabrigo merino worsted, just over half a skein of each colour.

Needles: 3.75mm

I so like the layered look, and they're so snug!  Long cuffs too, no chance of the cold getting up your sleeves.

The back has a cabled pattern to add a bit of interest.

This will be knitted again!  Although a very easy knit and well written pattern, there's enough things going on to keep me interested (ribbing, ridges, thumb gusset, outer lining).

Surprise! I didn't manage to finish the mitts.

There must be an equivalent knitting expression for 'eye's bigger than belly' but nothing springs to mind.  I always think I can knit much more than I actually do.  Last night was a great example.

By the time I'd had dinner and pottered around, my knitting time had shrank, so the Chimera mitts weren't finished as planned. 

Just the thumb and ends to darn in on this one.  The first mitt needs frogging back to the top of the mitt (and trying to un-darn the ends). 

And the sock, which I think I can finish by Tuesday isn't much better:

Must. Knit, Faster.  Wonder if Mr C will mind instant food this weekend? (we do share the cooking, but I do my stint over the weekend). 

This week's to-do list

Last week I made a list.  Just five things, but quite a lot of knitting - and I didn't manage to do it! So this is another list, stuff to do before the end of the month - i.e. in the next six days.

1) I didn't finish my textured shawl. This has been lying unloved for a week or two now.  I'm onto the final garter stitch edging now. I've struggled with this project, and have only now realised why - it's the needles! I'm using Addi lace needles, and the yarn has been splitty, splitty, splitty.  I've finally changed to some Addi wooden needles. The stitches are easier to spot on pale wood, and it's not as splitty now.

2) Knit the cuff of Eisblume gloves.  Didn't do any of this. did other things with the weekend light!

3) Didn't manage to knit the left of the second of Mr C's socks.  I am not enjoying the colour nor the yarn!

4) Restart WW kal hat, and knit clues 1 and 2.  Once picked up I finsihed these clues and the final one, and wore it in today, so a success.

5) Cheesehands- knit to the end of the thumb gusset. The reason I didn't knit on Eisblume gloves, because I wanted to get these finished.  I wore them in today!

So, before the end of the month, I shall:

1) Finish the textured shawl knitting.

2) Finish Mr C's sock.

3) Finish Chimera.  I've decided to make these into fingerless mitts, so shall remove the mitten top and fingers on the first one. This is the seond mitt. Taken this morning, in the dark, with mobile as camera at work!

I expect I shall finish these tonight, as I can't see a sock or a shawl calling out to me!

4) Knit clue 4 of the Mystery Lace kal. I think I may not have enough yarn to do a border though, so I may have to decide whether to do a border (I like a border!) and sacrifice this month's clue and even possibly frog last month's clue! Yikes!  I will have to have a look and see if there's a hand way of calculating yardage, and of measuring what's left to knit with. I have one of those balance thingies, which allegedly can do this (I think, must dig out the instructions) but do I trust it?  I have visions of me unwinding the ball and measuring it!

5) Knit the Eisblume cuff.   Must get on with this!

It means, should I manage to do all of this knitting, (lol!) that I will be going into December with just a lace stole and Eisblume on the needles.  Good job, as I'll be starting my twelth garment for IntSweMoDo2010, and I have two Christmas presents to knit. One will be a cowl ,but what on earth can I do for a man in his eighties who has everything?  He gets socks for birthday, I gave him a scarf two years ago, he has plenty of hats.  I think another scarf, or socks. Can  you have too many socks?

 

 

Woolly Wormhead's Mystery Hat Pattern B **spoiler photos!**

There are spoiler photos ahead, so if you are still knitting and don't want to know please read this post later! 

 

I shall change the title of this post when we get the pattern release and I know the name.

 

Pattern:  WW Mystery Hat Pattern B

Started:  3rd November

Finished: 19th November

Needles@ 3.75mm

Yarn: Manos silk blend, purple.

Modifications: none

 

I had a bit of a blocking disaster - instead of using the usual plate for blocking, I thought it looked a bit small and used our big plates.  How many years have I been knitting ????  So when I took it off the plate on Sunday it was far too big, the band had strethed out too much.  I've washed it again and blocked it on the smaller plate (didn't need any stretching!).  I can't sau that it's made much difference, but it does seem a tad smaller.

I tried to take photos yesterday morning outside work.  SOOOO funny!  Half of them didn't sow the hat (or my head) at all.  Lots were blurred.  Everyone rushing to work looked at me oddly! It doesn't help that the colour hides the pattern, which is great, little leaves on a reverse st stitch background.

Lovely!

 

 

Cheesehands, aka Day of the Tentacle mitts

Whee!

Pattern: Cheesehands by Julia Mueller

Started: 1st November

Finsihed: 22nd November

Needles: 2mm

Yarn: Yarn Yard's Bonny (orange) and Cairn (purple)

I love this pattern!  It's my first attempt at double knitting, and I'm hooked!  I love being able to turn them inside out and have a reverse colour mitt.

I thought that these would take forever.  When I cast on the first mitt it took me a whole evening to just do the bottom band (which wasn't even double knitting) as I kept making mistakes. Then, when I reached the double knitting pattern, I thought I would have to write down which row I was on, as I didn't have a clue how to see the knitting. 

It took me an inch or so to get into my stride.  The knitting speeded up (a little) and I could see the pattern emerging. 

I have two more double knitting patterns, both for mittens.  One is a Julai Mueller pattern, the other is a Lucy Neatby pattern, can't wait.

Cheesehands

Getting there! 

I've put down Chimera and have been concentrating on Cheesehands.  The chart is finsihed!  I still have the top band to do, and it's still double kjnitting, so slow, but the end is in sight.

Before dinner

Before bed

Whheeee! Can't wait to finish them!

Chimera ... again

Honestly, I thought I'd work on these in the morning, and then pick up a 'daylight' project such as Cheesehands.  But I was enjoying knitting with Malabrigo so much that I carried on, all day and all evening. With not much progress!

Once the two layers are knitted you join the inner and outer layers, and do a strip of reverse st st. Once this is knitted, it's decision time - mittens or fingerless mitts. For the latter you cast off as yo umake that last bit of piping.  For mittens you don't cast off, but knit the mitten top.

All along I've thought I'd do the fingerless version, but I'm easily swayed, especially when Mr C tries them on and says how lovely and warm they are and how mittens are the way to go.  So I unpicked the last ridge (which had been cast off).

I have at least three mitten patterns in the queue, so why make mittens when I can do them with little fingers and a flip over top?  That's the way to go!

It took all evening. I had to rework the fingers several times (too small!) and then the mitten top three times (over eager, kept started the decreasing too early). Finally done.   Lots of ends.

But.  I'm not that thrilled with it now that it's finished. They feel very chunky and big on the hand, and the fingers look really messy and horrible.  I feel as if I have a kitchen towel wrapped around my knuckles,  they are so thick.

I would choose to wear the mitten closed

and have it open when I need to use my fingers.

I've cast on the second, shall knit to Decision stage, and then make up my mind. If I choose to do this with the sevond I shall make further modifications - just use one colour for the fingers (less ends and tattiness).  And as I'm dissatisfied with the fingers on this one (I used the ends of Malabrigo to tidy up the loose stitches, instead of picking up extra at the base of the iingers) if I do this for the second I shall have to rework the fingers of this one as well,

I just can't decide what to do!  This style or the orginal fingerless mitts!  The only thing going for this style is that it's going to get cold.  Dccisions!